


a spectacle

by peonydee



Category: Kamen Rider Kabuto
Genre: Drama, M/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 07:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6414922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonydee/pseuds/peonydee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>wherein Arata tries to divorce Souji, but the forces of nature are thwarting him</p>
            </blockquote>





	a spectacle

**Author's Note:**

> for a tumblr ficlet prompt, 50. going through a divorce au, only this doesn't have to be AU and it's not a ficlet. For Mellon.

When Arata arrived home, Souji appeared to be in the middle of some complicated kitchen procedure---invariably, Souji always was doing some complicated thing that required Arata to keep quiet, keep away, stay out of sight until it was time to gawk in amazement at the end-product. Arata, quite frankly, didn’t give a shit about the racket he was making nor did he care that he was tracking mud all over the carefully polished wooden floors of the living room, that the mangled umbrella he had just hurled towards the couched missed completely and hit the unnecessarily overexposed wedding portrait sitting on the side table.

Good riddance, Arata thought, they ought to start destroying the things neither of them probably wanted to keep.

“You smug bastard,” Arata said. “How do you even mana---No, no! No matter how many times I ask the question, I will never get a decent answer. You are the sun. Gravity bends around you and the tides and the weather changes at your whim. Solar flares knock out swathes of telecommunication towers so no computer in Asia can reprint me a stupid form. You can even hide behind the clouds if you so wish. Ah, excuse me. Retire. I should say retire, get your beauty rest.”

A flicker of irritation passed on Souji’s handsome mug, even as he looked up from what Arata could now see was dough set aside to rise. The smug bastard was making bao of all things, as if bao would save their marriage. But even Souji didn’t seem interested in prolonging this situation any more than he is, the more rational side of Arata’s mind conceded. After all, he signed the divorce papers.

“I would have expected on a Monday morning,” Souji said, "a longer queue at the registry office. Even with the inclement weather, I didn’t expect you home early.”

Arata snorted and dug into his soaking wet pockets. He fished out a wad of muck and slammed it on the flour-dusted countertop.

“That’s why,” he said. “I didn't even get to the registry office."

"I'm assuming that used be..."

"The divorce form we both signed, yep. I only had to chase it down the hill, through three police catchment areas, and into an open manhole. That's all that's left."

"So we are still married."

If anything, the other man's simple pronouncement only angered Arata further. He could feel blood filling his ears, feel it pound against the walls of his head. He took a moment to breathe, knowing when he opened his eyes, Souji would still be watching him, untouched by the spectacle he was making of himself.

"You need a bath. Dry clothes and a meal, certainly, but a hot bath first. I will draw it."

"I won't get a cold from taking a swim in this part of Tokyo's poop and dishwater soup. And the rain washed most of the nasty stuff off me."

"Don't be ridiculous. Colds are from an infective agent, a virus. You won't acquire it from getting wet, but your immune system might be compromised enough by the stress you've undergone to be susceptible to opportunistic microbes. A bath. Now. In clean water. I insist."

"I'll take care of my own bath, but if you really want to be helpful, take care of the divorce form. We obviously need another one and the world is obviously conspiring to screw my efforts to get it done and over with. Just get a new form, sign your name, and I'll take care of it."

Souji made no further comment but continued to watch him. Arata huffed once more, considered the mess he had already made, and started stripping off his wet clothes, starting from the fairly new suit jacket his soon-to-be-ex husband had adjusted just a few weeks ago so the side paneling didn't quite bulge against the butt of his gun. The pants he hemmed a perfect 2 cm off the ground. The dress shirt he starched and ironed. The tie he paired with the pale peach of the shirt and the dark gray of the suit. The socks he paired with the belt. The fucking belt of cognac leather to match his cognac shoes, both fucking polished to mirror sheen. Arata dumped everything outside the back door where the rain and sewer water could ooze out and melt the cement for all he cared.

And still Souji watched.

"Don't touch anything," Arata added, gesturing to the wet tracks and the misaligned furniture. "I can clean up after myself just fine."

Souji ignored his words, moving his mixing bowl to another countertop before cleaning up the mess Arata left on the island. Arata huffed at this, then all but ran to the baths. The last thing he needed was Souji deciding he needed to scrub Arata clean, too--ah, but that wouldn't happen, Arata kicked aside the thoughts in embarrassment. They haven't really been... intimate for a while now.

There was that, at least, Arata was thankful. At least that whole physical aspect thing wasn't thrown into the mess. God knows, people didn't die from lacking that sort of thing, anyway.

What was he even thinking?

How did he end up in this situation, divorcing Tendou Souji after five years of marriage? He could only imagine going back to his self from seven years ago and telling him all that has transpired. Never mind divorcing, but that he married, he married the obnoxious stranger he had fallen in with who claimed to walk the paths to heaven, lofty and above reproach, a demigod to some. That he, Kagami Arata, was the one who proposed. He made a spectacle of himself as always. He blustered and half-assed his way through a five course dinner in a restaurant Souji had previously approved, mangled a song and speech, all while Souji watched with his big, dark eyes, fascinated by his propensity for failure to the point he didn't even get the urge to demonstrate his superior knowledge and skill.

What happened?

Arata would be the first to admit it. It's not like Souji ever treated him badly the past five years. After they got married, Souji took care of him the way he did his sisters, preparing meals worth 3 Michelin stars, preparing baths that reminded one of first class onsens, generally keeping their home like a five-star hotel. Arata could say Souji simply made true to counting him as a member of his family, (adding the sex on his side, of course) but minus the whole stalker tendency of dodging his sisters' steps to make sure they're safe in school or at work, though he couldn't put that past Souji 100%. He respected Arata's person enough to not meddle in his affairs at work.

At least, that was what Arata thought.

Arata had been perfectly contented at his direction in life. After the whole deal with the worms and zecters, he had gone into police academy and after graduating was fortunate enough to be assigned to a koban in his familiar neighborhood. Before he moved in with Souji, Arata had even rented an apartment a block away from his koban and so knew the citizens he served like the back of his hand. Eight-hour rotating shifts, flexible colleagues, being embedded in the community.... he would have been fine with that forever.

Every day he could, he volunteered for the early morning patrol, more of a stroll around a neighborhood still waking. Every morning he watched the preschoolers skip their way to school with their older siblings or their parents. Every noon Souji would pass by to drop off lunch, just minutes off the pan or oven. Every afternoon after the day has started cooling down he helped the obaasan from across the street pull in the futon after being aired and sunned out (her granddaughter helped her hang it out in the mornings, on her way to the train station). Every evening he'd come home to Souji's cooking, to the chatter of Juka, when she came over for dinner, or to the one-liners of Hiyori, when she came over to tell off her brother for trespassing into her kitchen (or microeconomics class or lukewarm date).

In between was the tedium of the lost, the distraught, the petty thieves, the domestic disputes, the vandals, the intoxicated.... the assaults. Only two homicides in his time. Only one suspected abuse case wherein Arata had been hard pressed to stay professional.

He even joked to his husband a few times about joining the riot police, a logical next step for young policeman growing out of the rookie phase.

"You don't have the temper for it," came the unamused response. "Not even the patience of a bodhisattva can save you--there is no promise of vindication after the third slap."

Staying married to Souji required patience beyond sainthood and to be called impetuous, while true, did sting. In retrospect, it had merely been a sign of Souji's growing displeasure with him. Of course, a man of his caliber would settle for no less, a spouse that he didn't have to brag about, one that had the corner office, the gun salutes, the title and prestige that didn't need a prelude of words. Of course, Souji would set out to improve him.

Arata had been meeting with his sergeant at the police box, pondering on how to approach their resident yakuza aspirant (every koban had one or twenty) over giving his middle school career another chance when they were called by their inspector and told to report to the station. Applications for the Criminal Investigations Bureau were due next week, with a written exam and a practical exam three months later. If accepted after several rounds of interviews, he would be given two years of a probationary post in the division that accepted him, amidst on-the-job training and evening classes towards a criminal justice degree at the local technical school.

"He told me I'd be a shoe-in for division 4," Arata told his husband over dinner. "He had no idea how much experience I have in kidnapping and blackmail. I almost pissed my pants--"

Souji only smiled as he passed him more rice, piping hot from the cooker. "As I said," he said. "Patience, and a path will open for a logical second step."

Arata left off his urge to punch that smart mouth and punished it with his miso mackerel-blessed one instead.

He wouldn't call it smooth sailing. The exams were difficult; the interviews were worse. The first few months were hell.

Working in the community as a koban police officer had been steadily busy, sometimes hectic. In criminal investigation, the work never seemed to end. The requisite paperwork alone asked for more hours spent on the field and while stakeouts were tedious, he had never been the sort to be able to relax when waiting.

And there were just so many regulations to keep track of! The seniors didn't always have time to slow down and explain things. Sometimes, he was embedded in a case and wasn't allowed to contact home. There were stretches of days when he didn't even get to go home for a change of clothes, when he'd give anything for a cup of hot broth served by Souji with a lecture on how to take advantage of how the body is designed to articulate most efficiently so he didn't strain connective tissues that didn't really heal well sip your soup before it gets tepid. The fighting was not as much as the cop dramas made it seem like, and the regular drills woke up muscle memory from his days as the god of war.

As with anything that involved groups of people working on the not-so-the-same goals after all, there were cliques within the squads, even within his own division, that knew rookies as fair game to use for pawns. Arata had never been good with having to maneuver around the petty politics and he doubt he'd ever learn. Only the hard-earned nose for suspicion saved him from being used for unpleasant things, something he had the dubious pleasure of thanking his own husband for.

Souji didn't have words of wisdom for him on that issue. He just eyed Arata with his usual mysteriousness and handed him a second plate of fatty tuna sliced with the perfection of a venerated sushi chef.

Souji wouldn't understand, not viscerally or practically. He never had the need to involve himself with such pettiness. He didn't have to ever give way, because somehow the other party always did. The world bent around him so conveniently that Arata wondered if he could even have a smidgen of that power just by association.

The rewards of the job, though seemingly scanty, was near intoxicating, however. The satisfaction of being able to remove such dangerous elements off the streets, or even worse, the seemingly harmless ones who prey on the unwary, set off the disappointment of a failed indictment or a dissolved case. Instead of deterring him, Arata found such incidences only made him more careful in building evidence in future cases, learning to bide his time and school the hot burn of demand for justice that Souji noted to cause him to act half-baked. A year and a few weeks later, Arata realized he was quite happy the way things were, both in the career and home front. That was, until one idle day in the office.

As he wondered if there was something he could do for Souji, who had been amazingly supportive in his particular ways, Arata overheard a conversation between two seniors commenting at how lucky that boy Kagami was for having the right connections. What a waste it would have been if he had just languished at a train station police box for the rest of his life.

Arata wasn't completely surprised by that. Souji must have felt the same: what a waste it would have been if Arata didn't go for the hamster mill of official titles and promotions. Still, Arata gave him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps, Souji didn't necessarily do anything to manipulate the situation. And again, Souji was Souji. Things just happened around him for some reason, infuriating but not exactly unpredictable in that he always got what he wanted.

Arata didn't get the chance to ask Souji about it before the issue shifted from problematic to critical.

One mistake. One mistake was all it took for every single attribute they found to praise about him to turn into liability. Suddenly, his youth underlined his lack of experience and wisdom. His self-directedness morphed to brashness and trigger-happiness. His resilience now somehow reflected his inability to commit or coordinate to anything more complex than routine operations. Kagami Arata became a mistake.

It was a damning mistake though. It unraveled seven months’ worth of groundwork, imperiled the lives of several secret agents, and worst of all, nullified most of their criminal case against one of the most notorious crime lords of the Kanto region.

“Matsumoto walks free tomorrow,” Arata told his husband the evening after things settled down enough to allow him home.

“Even he can’t amass enough funds for bail that quickly,” Souji disagreed.

“Newsflash: he has regular dealings with Korean, Chinese, and who-knows-how-many Southeast Asian syndicates.”

“His underlings would have no access to slush funds stored overseas. Collaborative efforts with the 7th division should have been long underway to ensure those international accounts could be rendered frozen with a single phone call. His other assets would take time to liquidate.”

“You’re overestimating the bail.” You’re overestimating me. “And you’re overestimating the police. They haven’t pinpointed all of the accounts.”

“Aa.” Of course, Souji wasn’t surprised to hear that.

“I lead a raid into an exchange of goods meeting prematurely. It was a textbook clusterfuck, in case you’re wondering how it went.”

“They can’t possible pin this mishap on you alone. If your operation was flawed, it was because your data was flawed. Demand a root cause analysis.”

“I’m the root cause, all right?” Souji wouldn’t understand what it’s like to live with a colossal mistake like that. “I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. There’s really no dodging that.”

"This is why I operate solely on data I've gathered with my own senses."

"The police don't work like that."

"Needless to say. But now Matsumoto is ruined in all legal business circles, that much I can tell you. He has lost any semblance of legitimacy as a businessman and will have few to noone willing to front any of his operations. His infrastructure has taken a big hit after those raids. His operations in Japan are crippled and it will only be a matter of time before you shut down each of them.

"They'll never be tied back to him," Arata said grimly. "The human trafficking victims who died in that cargo ship that sank during that typhoon last month– where's their justice? These petty civil suits won’t keep him off the street. He'll probably just move his base operations overseas."

"You don't think they have already?" Souji asked.

Of course, Souji mysteriously knew whatever facts he took pains to know about.

"Have they?"

Souji shrugged. "Only vanity will keep him here now."

"Anyway,” Arata said with a mirroring shrug. “That's been my week. I fucked up. Maybe I wasn't ready – "

"When then?" Souji hissed. "When will you be ready? You will never be in the state that makes it impossible for you to make mistakes. Stop reciting such stupidity."

"Souji-san, there's mistake and then there's major fuck up."

"I wasn't exonerating you of anything. I'm just pointing out the inefficiency of your wallowing in guilt needlessly."

"Well sorry for being inefficient."

"Your sense of justice has always been your fatal flaw, as well as your greatest–"

"Souji-san, did you ask my boss to promote me?"

Souji didn’t even bat a single doll-like eyelash at Arata’s admittedly nasty curve ball. "I suggested it has been long in coming. Their professional development plans were inadequate."

"You didn't think I’d apply for promotion on my own when I felt ready?"

"How would you feel ready when you're applying such unrealistic expectations to the word?"

"You didn't trust me to know when I was ready."

"I don't trust you to realistically assess your capacity for challenges outside your comfort zone."

"Of course. You wouldn't want to have a deadbeat husband stuck at the train station police box--"

"The conversation is over, Arata-san."

Perhaps, it might have been better if the conversation did end there.

The issue just kept coming up, even weeks after---Arata made sure of that because he’d be damned if he just let it die a natural death. It got to the point where Arata became obsessed with hearing Souji just come right out and criticize him, that Arata couldn't stop himself from dropping sarcastic comments to needle his unflappable husband, not even when Juka was there to visit.

Arata didn't expect how angry he had been when Souji didn't deny it. He did speak to the superintendent. He did want Arata to climb the ranks. And typical of Souji, he seemed bemused that Arata was upset about it.

Things went downhill from there. Arata just couldn't let go of the fact that Souji went behind his back to get him promoted. It's a perfectly Souji thing to do, but after years of being married to the man... Arata thought Souji was done trying to mold Arata into a paragon he wasn't. Arata thought that maybe Souji was happy with their life, that he'd respect Arata enough to speak to him about things if he was somehow discontented.

The more Arata pushed, the more Souji stood his ground. Why did the sun have to explain every curvature of its path in the heavens? He never answered Arata's questions. Truth be told, Arata had to admit he himself wasn't sure if he was even asking the right ones.

"Your influencing my superiors isn't even the point, Souji!" Arata burst out one evening. "It's your going around my back and making my decisions for me."

"I made no decisions for you."

"I know, I know it has always been your p-passion to annoy me into changing. To clock me up into some sort of perfected model of Kagami Arata. I don't pretend to always understand you, but shit, man, when will I ever be enough for you?"

The rice paper glow of the lanterns made the room dismal not romantic. They turned Souji's eyes into twin black holes, the set lines of his mouth yet another door shut to Arata's face.

"We can't be married and stay like this, you know."

"Aa."

"Hell, at the rate we're going, we should just divorce now before things get worse."

“... Aa.”

It would be an understatement to say that Arata didn't expect Souji to agree when he offered divorce.

What else was Arata to do at that point? It confirmed everything he feared the past five years of marriage. That one day, Souji would just get tired of him. One day, Souji would realize that Arata wasn't really doing anything for either of them, that Arata in his stupid, superhuman, who the hell had any idea how, way of perfecting things, was really quite dispensable. That one day, he would tire of playing wife and would go on to obsess and prod at something more interesting, more in line with his life of perfection.

 

The bath water had gotten cold and smelled of sewered divorcee rookie detective. Arata wrenched himself out of the tub and rinsed thoroughly, admitting that Souji had been right, he did feel better, and maybe he shouldn't have overreacted over the stupid divorce form or the stupid divorce in general.

Arata left the bathroom with vague ideas about talking over newly steamed bao, trusting Souji's mysterious ways to lend him some good luck, too. That he wouldn't lose his temper. That he wouldn't shoot his mouth. That he wouldn't lash out because it hurt like hell to be outclassed, outgrown, worn out.

They really should talk.

But the stove was cold when Arata reached the kitchen. The countertops gleamed clean and smelled faintly of lemon. The furnitures were fixed in their appointed places. The floors dry except for where Arata's damp hair dripped.

Souji was gone.

Kagami Arata didn't expect the way his entire world crumbled when he realized he had finally gotten rid of Tendou Souji.


End file.
